The Laying On of Hands by Alan Bennett Stories

Three stories in one volume from one of Britain's most admired authors and playwrights. The Laying On Of Hands is Bennett at his inimitable best in this funny, and mischievous satire about a society memorial service for a rather special masseur who has died at a tragically young age in Peru.

In "Father! Father! Burning Bright" Bennett writes with tragicomic insight about a son's vigil at his father's deathbed where their lifelong battle continues to the end. With his pared down and deceptively simple prose style Bennett unflinchingly describes the random thoughts and haphazard conversations of the family members waiting in the hospital as they face life and death.

In "Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet" a podiatrist shows a lonely, unmarried department store clerk that there's more to life than looking after her brother. Part of the award winning and critically acclaimed Talking Heads series, "Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet" was described in the New York Times as both "touching" and "hilarious."

Unrated Critic Reviews for The Laying On of Hands

The Guardian

The Laying on of Hands
Alan Bennett
Profile £6.99, pp120
'Aids never did sales any harm,' muses a publisher in The Laying on of Hands, Alan Bennett's latest contribution to Profile's series of little books in conjunction with the London Review of Books.

London Review of Books

Knowing the deceased, many of those filing into the church in surprisingly large numbers also knew each other, though in the circumstances prevailing at funerals and memorial services this is not always easy to tell as recognition tends to be kept to a minimum – the eye downcast, the smile on hol...